Fergus Loc: Westfield,IN

Has anyone been following the new Tamron 18-400 F 3.5-6.3, or better, has anyone purchased one?

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Its been out for almost 1 1/2 years now. Lots of owner posts on here. A search will bring up plenty of them.

Country Boy Loc: Beckley, WV

I have one and love it but it is not my go to lens.

wwright Loc: Tucson

I rented one for a week to try it out. It was great, but I wanted a little more reach for wildlife pics; and I already have a kit zoom lens for the 20 - 50 range. I ended up with the Tamron 200 - 600.

seco66 Loc: Niagara Region, ON

I love this lens! I'm fairly new to photography and it suits my needs well. My wife and I do a lot of hiking so I feel the Tamron provides us the confidence and preparedness for any photo op we come across. I found myself switching too often between the 18-55 and 70-300 kit lenses that came with the camera when we were out on the trails...resulting in a couple of close calls of dropping the lens in my haste to change it up to get the photo! lol I find the image quality exceptional, the auto focus reliable and it's not too heavy to carry around all day. The zoom range is what attracted me to this lens and it's the one on my camera 90% of the time. And the price was unbeatable for a lens with this versatility, in my opinion. I did find the zooming to be a little stiff at first and from what I've read, this is not an uncommon problem with the barrel. But it has since loosened up to the point the action is nice and smooth. I think this is a great option for those who are looking for an everyday lens that will allow them to photograph all sorts of things, whether you are near or far from the action.

Fergus Loc: Westfield,IN

Thanks for responding!

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Don't have one and will never buy one.

Image quality is pretty poor compared to the less radical range 24-70, 70-200 and 100-400 zooms I use. The Tamron is okay in the center of the image, but soft toward the edges and corners. And it has tons of chromatic aberration at longer focal lengths. See for yourself:
https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=1145&Camera=963&Sample=0&FLI=5&API=1&LensComp=972&CameraComp=963&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=4&APIComp=1
https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Tamron-18-400mm-f-3.5-6.3-Di-II-VC-HLD-Lens.aspx

Hyper-range zooms like the 18-400mm give you the convenience of "all in one", but they compromise in an awful lot of ways, too.

- Small aperture... starts out at f/3.5 at 18mm, but drops to f/4.5 at 42mm, f/5 at 50mm, f/5.6 at 89mm and all the way to f/6.3 at 117mm. At a lot of its focal lengths, it's a full stop slower than my slowest lens. As a result it would be a "good light only" lens.... and shooting sports and wildlife, that just won't do for me.
- Adding a filter like a circular polarizer would make for an even dimmer lens.
- Lens hood is shallow to avoid vignetting at 18mm... it cannot possibly be very effective at 200, 300 and 400mm!
- It's good that it's internal focusing (doesn't increase length when focused closer)... But it's far from internal zooming. It doubles in length when zoomed to 400mm.
- No tripod mounting ring... can't imagine using a 300mm or 400mm lens without one!
- Plastic construction without any sealing for weather or dust resistance to speak of.
- When I only need 18-50mm range, seems a pain to carry around a much bigger lens.
- It's a "Di II" lens, meaning it's crop only. Can't use it on full frame cameras.
- Seems okay when new, but might develop a rather severe case of "zoom creep" when it gets some wear and tear on it and loosens up. Has a zoom lock, but it only works at the fully retracted (18mm) zoom setting.

Granted, there are some things it does pretty well, all things considered...

- Close focusing.... gets to about 1/3 life size (at 400mm), which is better than many zooms.
- For it's range, it's reasonably compact and light weight.
- Pretty nice "bokeh" at the longer focal lengths, though the strength of background blur is limited by it's small max aperture.
- Faster focusing than I expected.... though it's dependent on good light (might be okay on newer cameras that can focus down to -3EV or even lower).
- Image stabilized, though it's less effective than most (Tamron claims it's good for up to 2.5 stops... most stabilized lenses today are rated 4 or even 5 stops).
- A lot less to carry around, compared to the three lenses I mentioned (or many other combos).
- At $650, it's a lot of focal lengths in one, for the money.

Actually, it's a pretty amazing lens, offering a previously unheard of all-in-one zoom range. If you only have a very limited budget for lenses.... And if you don't have very high expectations of image quality, never crop your images much and don't make very large prints from them... Or if you're traveling and have a severe limit on the camera gear you can carry.... Or if you are simply too lazy or scared to change lenses... It might be a good lens for you. It's not for me.

SueScott Loc: Hammondsville, Ohio

I've had mine since last November - it's been on my D7500 most of that time except when I've needed a lens to do something specialized. I'm happy with its reach and have had no complaints about image quality, even when an image has been rather severely cropped and it's been used in all sorts of situations - landscape, night shots, and portraiture.

seco66 Loc: Niagara Region, ON

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Buyers on Amazon seem to love it. I'm waiting for their 18-500mm.
https://www.amazon.com/Tamron-18-400mm-3-5-6-3-Digital-Warranty/dp/B072YT9KXW

SueScott Loc: Hammondsville, Ohio

Oh, wouldn't that be nice!!

seco66 Loc: Niagara Region, ON

Don't tease me like that, Jerry!! lol

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Can argue with a thing you said. Any superzoom has a variety of compromises. But dang, they are convenient. I've owned superzooms in the past and gave my original Canon Efs 18-200 to my wife, and my Tamron 18-270 PZD to my son and moved on to short zooms and primes.

However, I will be in Nova Scotia next week on vacation and will be doing a lot of walking around and frankly don't want to be dragging around extra lenses or changing them as I'm out and about. So I just bought the 18-400 and have been hoping for the best. I have to say that despite its limitations the 18-400 is a surprisingly good lens. Size wise its about the same size as the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 but weighs approximately 4 oz lighter. And it seems to almost double its size when zoomed in. On my Canon 7D mark II the focus is pretty quick, although not as fast as many of my other lenses. AF on my camera was pretty good right out of the box but I experimented a bit with micro adjustment on both ends and was surprised by the amount of improvement based on my general expectation for sharpness with this lens. I'm going to play with that some more.

First impressions are that the contrast is pretty decent, generally the sharpness is the center is good and even pretty decent all the way to the edges when stopped down. Its better at the short end then the long, but even at 300mm when stopped down to around f/11 its still surprisingly decent across the frame. As you approach 400mm it really starts to fall apart. Its fairly sharp in the center at 400mm when stopped down to f/11 or better f/16, but never gets really sharp at the edges at that focal length. Distortion and chromatic aberration is not excessive for a lens of this type and of course can mostly be removed in post. Clearly not a lens for critical shooting, but much better than expected. The build quality seems very decent for a lens of this type and the triple barrel is very snug with no side to side movement. While its only a gut feeling based on my experience, I don't think this lens will be prone to extreme zoom creep. And its has weather sealing which is generally unusual for lenses of this type. I think it will work well for me in Nova Scotia.

I shoot raw 100% of the time and use DXO PhotoLab Elite for post processing. It's first rate distortion, CA, vignetting, perspective, contrast, sharpening and noise reduction tools can fix, or at least improve, many of the issues I'm seeing, and most of them can be set to do it automatically. As mid priced superzooms go, the Tamron 18-400mm may be the best of the lot. I think the down side for many who might be interested in it, other than the image quality limitations, is its size and weight.

Dziadzi Loc: Wilkes-Barre, PA

I have one for over a year, seldom use any other lens. It is my "goto" lens for my 6 grandchildren and their sports activities.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I stand corrected on the zoom creep. When I point my copy straight up or straight down it's slowly creeps between 50 mm and a little under 200 mm. But, even at a few degrees off of straight up or straight down I don't see any creep at all. Of course it will likely get worse over time, and even the range of the creep may change, but that remains to be seen. However since it does creep through part of the range when facing down, I would definitely encourage the use of the lock when carrying a camera with this lens on your shoulder.